Sound and silence

Didier Weiss is a name people in the sound industry recognise instantly. He is French, and lives in Pondicherry. He developed an unusually keen ear and passion for sound as a schoolboy, and that led him to a career in sound engineering.

African musicians who visited his studio in Paris used to call him ‘the magician’. He made his first recording in the days of vinyl, and when he was just 14. The regular sound engineer didn’t turn up, and 40 musicians were sitting around wondering what to do when someone suggested he try his hand at the console. He did, and the results stunned everyone.

A time came when he had to choose between Africa and India. His heart chose India, and he set up his consultancy here in 1999. Didier specialises in audio design. It’s not just film and music recording studios that require audio consultancy. Auditoriums and shrines are among his clients.

I had the opportunity of meeting Didier last week, and will tell you a fascinating story I heard from him. Among the studios Didier helped design is one in Chennai owned by A R Rahman. Music buffs may know little about what goes into the production of a good recording. Some of the back-end things that go into it, besides musicianship, are room dimensions, interior design, gear, the sound engineer’s knowledge, ability and intuition.

Rahman’s studio, it turns out, had superb insulation. Studios are insulated so that outside sounds don’t spoil what’s being recorded, and also because you don’t want the neighbours hollering at you… it’s possible they can’t stand your music, or you’re doing your takes at a time when the rest of the world is asleep.

When the certification experts came into Rahman’s studio, they said, “Ah, this is very very silent… a bit too silent.” You see, it was so dead (Didier prefers ‘dry’ to ‘dead’!) that the experts believed the music would get mastered at a volume too low, and the score would get lost when played at the movie halls, the quietest of which can’t avoid ambient sound.

And so the designers went back to add some sound to the quietness. They pumped up the volume on some speakers so that the hiss would fill up the room.

It was wonderfully educative to hear Didier talk. And the lesson for me was a little paradox: Perfect may be useless.

Strange case of Priya Krishna

Priya is an unusual name for a boy, but this one is named after his mother. At 25, his declared wealth is, hold your breath, Rs 770 crore. He can’t drive, but owns swanky Mercs, Audis and Mitsubishis (we don’t know exactly how many, but it’s a big stable). He studied at a modest Vidya Mandira-kind of school. And he dabbles in politics.

Priya Krishna, son of Layout Krishnappa, would be a challenge to marketing wizards who believe this city’s moneybags look and behave a particular way. The wizards are convinced the affluent young professional swigs beer at the pubs, catches the latest Bollywood films at the multiplex, and devours the English dailies. Well, not Priya Krishna, or his equally rich peers in the real estate business.

Priya has quietly developed 10 townships. His friends say he is developing 10 more. He doesn't go near the pubs. His parents force him to go out and watch the occasional film, which he does reluctantly. He doesn’t hit the hot spots with his girlfriends (and here’s something we heard: Deve Gowda, leader of a rival party, is trying to give his granddaughter in marriage to him).

Where do you fit this guy into your media plan? And what of his friends? Bangalore's real estate lords read the Kannada papers, are fascinated by the crime shows on TV, and catch all the gory Darshan potboilers. Their Telugu-speaking counterparts would rather watch a Ram Charan Teja blockbuster than Love Aaj Kal. You can’t sell them your kind of fashion. They love politics and take their fashion cues from politicians, wearing “white and white” (white shirt and white trousers), and completing the get-up with white-coloured sandals.

You can’t sell chic accessories to them: they will only wear thick gold necklaces, bracelets, and rings. They love the Scorpio and the Swift Diesel, and will make a "big-ticket" purchase only when bitten by the itch to show off a little more. Their idea of a night out is to drive in a convoy, phone a starlet over to a resort, and discuss a movie project.

The marketplace has a logic laypeople hardly understand, but I often wonder. Are marketers within media going after people who look affluent but who, in truth, are in danger of being visited by the credit card recovery agent? Are they trying to please jobless riff raff masquerading as celebs? Are they giving away precious media space to shameless freeloaders?

Scams on your phone

What irritates you the most about your mobile phone carrier? The "press 1 for this, press 2 for that" rigmarole when you call for help? Their sleight of hand with rates? "Value-added services" that quietly jack up your bills?

A reader came to us last week with an angry complaint about his service provider. He'd had trouble downloading ringtones, and was charged for something he hadn't got. The guys at the counter had been far from helpful; in fact, they had been downright obnoxious. Hundreds of such mobile user stories are waiting to be told

Personally, I am irritated by the text promos my phone company sends for its friendship chat service. These are awfully worded, and cause offence to the copy editor in me. I also know they're trying to lure me into something perfectly useless so that they can make some quick money. (But then, a colleague told me this service wasn't always as innocently useless as I thought. Two years ago a mobile chat service promoted by a newspaper was all the rage on the college campus because his friends could use it to chat, flirt, get a date, hook up, and more.)

But carriers ripping you off when you aren't looking isn't just the usual Indian cleverness at work. David Pogue, my favourite personal tech writer, has been, by his own admission, "ranting about one particularly blatant money-grab by US cellphone carriers: the mandatory 15-second voicemail instructions".

He writes in The New York Times that he is disgusted with canned messages that say things like (I have slightly modified this example to make it sound Indian):

"The number you have called is not available right now. Please leave a detailed message after the tone. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press hash for more options." Pogue gives compelling reasons why these messages are outrageous: "First, they waste your time... Second, we're PAYING for these messages."

He calculates that those 15-second messages rake in about 620 million dollars (Rs 3,038 crore) a year for Verizon, one of that country's leading carriers. That's a lot of money about a tenth of Assam's budgetary expenditure for 2009-10!

Pogue is now spearheading a campaign against the scam. He is getting readers of his widely read column to send written complaints to the carriers.

"If enough of us make our unhappiness known, I'll bet they'll change," he says. He believes the volume of complaints will make the mobile companies stop their deceitful ways. There's much we in India could do about the mobile phone scams we live with. A mobile users' association that could lobby against unfair practices, even with a small percentage of Indian mobile users as members, could force service providers to listen to grievances with greater respect and seriousness. Pogue knows where his campaign is heading. He writes: "If they ignore us, we'll shame them. If they respond, we'll celebrate them."

Good luck, David. We will follow your campaign for hope and inspiration.